What was the biggest adventure of your past year?

Yikes.  It seems such a long time ago since 2008 arrived like a winter blast one very cold January ago.  *Sniff*   And now...*more sniffs* I am not sure what makes me more sad, him  preparing to leave me just when I decided to accept  him for his unusual ways or the fact that although he writes brilliant chapters, he somehow didn't have the art to end the last chapter with a happy blast.  Sigh.  I have to admit the former situation makes me sadder.   I am going to miss him, yes him.  2008.  Sniff.  I can't stop crying...and if I don't stop soon, I'll be up to my third eye in tissues...

Oh well...maybe I should write it all down, talk about those "exciting, adventuresome, heart-stopping" and sometimes "scary" wild romps...er...adventures  I had with 2008.  Yep.  I really ought to recount all the challenges I overcame, all the challenges that overcame me...........let him know he rocked at times....sucked at times...and how I managed to stay balanced on the tight rope between his heaven and earth...

I pull out a piece of paper and begins to write...(shut up, I'm feeling archaic, okay!!!)  when suddenly the pen slips and falls to the floor.  *%$#%*%$#@   I fear my earphones will follow too so I ignore the pen and opt for my keyboard instead...

"Dear 2008. I'm going to miss you-"

"Boo!" Someone says loudly behind my back.

What the-I spun around in amazement and there he is...2008, all packed as if he's going someplace sunny and watery...there are suitcases on his head, an inflatable boat in one arm, a super size beach ball in the other... and sun-tan lotion poking  out of his tea-shirt's pocket.

I gulp.  "Hey! Don't sneak up on me like that! Yikes! You scared away what little bliss I had left inside of me!!!!"

He smiles.  The nerves.  2008 smiles at me.  "Why are you crying?" and "Oh, there's no need to shout."

I scowl, my left fingers tugging at my earphones while my mouse fingers exit off YouTube.  I gulped in a huge breath of air before glancing up at 2008.  "I was listening to a song. You've a problem with that?"

2008 stares at me.  "No wonder you're crying.  For Simon's sake, "I'm a rock" is a terribly sad song.  And why are you listening to it?"

I stare back at 2008.  *Sniff* "As if you don't know!!!"  I roll my mental eyes.

He's still staring at me in genuine confusion. "Let's get this straight.  So someone you know is going through a break-up, but why is it affecting you so...why are you letting it affect you at all?"

I roll my eyes, my physical ones.  "Because, dear Knockout Year of mine, you of all years should know that I lost my shield....and it feels as if all the plagues of the universe is bombarding me........it's like having no immune system, no protective gear against the negative force of nature....everyone's pain becomes my pain......"

2008 made a face. "Yeah, yeah...I know all about it because everything is all about you...I have known this since January."

I scowl darkly. "Sarcasm suits you."

"I wasn't being sarcastic." 2008 denies sheepishly. 

(As if it matters to me!!!   Years can believe the heck what they wanna believe.)

2008 tries again.  "Well, I'm sure you know that this ‘disappearing shield' biz of yours have a positive side too.  If you're being bombarded with other people's pain, then you should also be feeling their happiness."

I let that bit rumble through my mind before tossing it out.   I don't want to dwell on happiness right now but I know I'm going to be swamped by it soon.  So I change the subject.    "Oh!  Before I forget, I need to go over the most memorable dates I had with you." I smile as the good times begin to roll across my inner vision and then it stopped.  My smile stops too.  "Yikes." I screech.  "The bad stuff outweighs the good!!!  Bloody!!!  Hell!!!!   What the OLD YEAR is up with that!!!!!"  

It was 2008 turn to roll his eyes. "Not true.  You had equal amounts of everything this year...however, it would seem the opposite because your ‘happiness' came in at a slow drip-drop rate."

I frown.  "Not good...not good enough..."  Come to think of it, it was like receiving a drop of sugar every other second.  Trust me!!!  Japanese Water Torture sounds less parching!!!

2008 looks all bent out of shape.  "Well, at least I tried ...at least I did a better job than 2007!!! "

I gape.  "You did?"  I close my mouth only to open it to sputter. " You did not!!  If I'm correct, 2007 was a more productive companion!  Heck, I wrote a whole book in 2007 and what did I do in 2008?" I brought my fist down hard unto my keyboard *ow*  "All I did in 2008 was probably to edit and re-edit and you know what else?  It's the last day of your year and I am still bloody polishing manuscripts!!!     In fact, I'm so obsessed with polishing, I've become a hopeless addict in this field and unable to stop myself from editing everything in sight...yes, even-

"Don't forget you had a computer crash."  2008 interrupts me.  (He's looking more flustered than ever.  And he should be!  Bloody incompetent Bastard Year!!!     What a loser year he has proven to be.   

"And whose fault is that?  Whose fault that I had a computer crash!" I roll my eyes again for disgruntled effect.  "You could have waited until I did my back-up but oh no, you had to accomplish the impossible before your time was out!!!"

2008 shrugs.  "'Sides, you were able to salvage most of your data."

I shrug too.  "Yes, but it cost me time and money.  And talking about money, I lost my diamond solitaire as well...and I wasn't sure whether it got snapped off its base in some shopping mall fitting rooms or whether it fell off while I was cleaning."  (So I blew it a goodbye kiss wherever it was and thought about having it replaced...only thing was that it was going to cost me over 4,500.00 Canadian dollars and the way I saw that scenario was that it was a simple waste of money.........money I could give to the starving children of the world, installment for my children's extra-education and so much more.)

2008 looks suddenly enlightened but I ignore him.

Sigh.  "Who really needs to wear a solitaire anyway?"   Certainly not me................and ‘sides, the thing is this...I truly believe that whatever a person earns by their own sweat, no one could take away, and if lost, would always be found in same form or another.........but I concluded that ‘stupidity' and 'carelessness' were probably an unsolvable glitch in my ‘keep-forever-if-earned-by-your own-sweat' program.   

Sigh.  So many things have happened this year to cause my heart strings to come undone and make my heart bleed non-stop.

"Yes, but you found the diamond from your ring this morning, didn't you now?"  2008 is looking at me in a triumphant manner.

"Yes." I am unable to hold back my smile.  "I found it in a corner of the house...which is really weird....the entire house was vacuumed so many times since I lost the damn thing...and when I found it, I wasn't even looking for it...actually I was swiffering dust off the floor and I heard a clink and there it was...right at my feet!!!" 

"That ought to make you smile for the next few of my remaining hours." 2008 said smugly.

"I know." I say.  "And 2008, thanks. "  I let out a grateful breath.  "I also want to tell you that although you brought cancer to one of my relative (though you should have left that to year 2050 or something) what the heck, at least she's fully recovered...in total remission..."

"You're welcome.  What else brought you pain?" He asks gently.

I bit my lips, my mind working furiously but I can't come up with anything of substantial value.  "Umm...what else has brought me pain?" I mumble in my mind.  " Why, the least thing...every single thing in this universe...including bloody sirens...really...it tells me the road Nazis are getting nearer.....ya know...trust me, if they saved lives by scaring the heck out of Shumackers wannabe, well, they do the opposite for me because now instead of paying attention to the bloody road, I am on the full lookout for traffic lords!  (I have become an accident waiting to happen)   Hai Bhagwan, I can't even drive in peace!!!!"

2008 smiles indulgently.  "I'm sure you will get over it. "

"I doubt it.  I highly doubt it." I sniff.  " I am starting to become a paranoid freak.  Take today for instance.   A simple word ‘melt' motivated me to panic big time.  You see...the last time I was at the gym, one of the trainers handed me a packet of sample products......and normally I don't remember to use the damn stuff until they expired but today I spotted it on the bathroom floor and I decided to try the one called ‘instant melting hair masque'.  It promised the moon, the sun and stuff like "hair is repaired for a silky weightless feel" and what is more...this could be achieved in an instant...........and if you know me, you would know I love instant stuff.........only thing, once I got into the bath.....washed my hair like the instructions said...toweled dry like the instructions said........i applied the entire contents on my hair....from tips to crown like the instruction demanded....and lo....suddenly it assailed me....this horrible smell that could be found nowhere in nature...but only in depilatory creams..............and suddenly I saw my hair melting off my head in rapid succession...I saw me unable to go to work, ashamed to face anyone, me unable to find a wig.............oh god...my hair...my precious hair...(you know...I am planning to grow it Rapunzel long....for the first time of my life and oh god...now I was going to have to start from scratch....oh god....my hair is currently the length of three (okay...four when wet) standard bath tiles.......yikes....and here I was carelessly ‘melting' it off with some Garnier product.......oh god...it smelled like Neet....what if Garnier made a huge mistake and stuffed the wrong product into the right packet????"

I pause for breath.   "In a flash I saw untold horrors of this universe...like people with perfectly good hair laughing at my orange wig...(I mean where would I find a brunette wig during holiday season?  And even if I found one online who would deliver during at a time like this???)"

Sigh.

"After I washed off the stuff in lightning speed....(damn weak water wouldn't pour out fast enough) I read the description on the packet once again.  And I breathed a sigh of relief.   Okay...the result for all the stress....well..........I now have shiny, sweet smelling hair (I used suave orchid petal conditioner afterwards)  and here I am smiling away....my hair smells like an orchid walk...."

"Mmmm........ I think in another couple of years (6 inches per year) I will have rapunzel long hair and no witch better not try to climb up that........."  I laugh out loud.   "Or I'll  have to use ‘Neet' after all...."

"2008 laughs out loud too. " Now tell me this.  Why the heck were you listening to sad songs on Youtube a little while ago?"

I sigh dramatically.  "Someone I know is going through a break-up and all because his girlfriend of ten months suddenly realizes he's too un-punjabi, too un-rich, too much meat eating going on in his stomach...and some etcetera...and oh...get this....he's never going to fit in no matter if he gets initiated into the clan because he's ‘black'.   I roll my eyes.  "In this day and age...what the heck 2008?  Scenes like these are so friggin last century!  What were you thinking when you brought it into play in this era? "

2008 sighs.  "It's not my fault.  It's all the 1960's and beyond fault.  And Nature too.  But at least you understand her, know how to get into her mind, decode her programming..."

"Yea." I agree.  "Nature thinks I'm a rebel without a cause but at least now she knows why I try so hard to figure her out.  Why I have this need to outsmart her."

2008 blinks.   "Yes I did observe that and I really thought u were suicidal....it was like someone cutting off their head to spite their neck!"

I chuckle at his expression.  "Yes, it means the end of all we know and the beginning of new things once all humankind figure out nature." 

"You'll miss me?" 2008 asks suddenly.

"Yeah." I sniff.   " I am going to miss you becuz...becuz...you made me stronger....you brought me down on my knees to kiss my bent out world back into shape, you made me hold hands and give out courage, you showed me how to keep everything in balance ...."  I sniff again.  "Everything turned out okay except for one little broken heart!"

"Perhaps 2009 will correct all imbalances." 2008 says with a hopeful glint in his eyes.  Sounds like he is really regretting he didn't make a happy ending to his December chapter he wrote for me.

"I hope so too."   Sigh.  I am so stomping mad...so mad, I could eat my own stew, drink my own steam!!!!  Choke on my own venom!!!    

God!!!!  Why is my own race viewing me and my generation as a disease because my forefathers sailed away from their land so many friggin eggplants ago???  What the Whitby??   *%$#@% .  I really need to kick some ignoramus's butt!!!!  I mean what the Hesperus!!!    Hai Bhagwan!   Are people really this short-sighted?  How come I don't have any racial bones--

"Whoa there."  2008 says with a chuckle.  "Keep in mind that you understand why people say and think the things they do.    It's all inside their programming."

I sigh.  "I know.  And just so you know, I'm already over that bit..."  I took a calming breath.   "I'm going to miss you." I added.  I give 2008 a warm hug and felt butterflies churning away in my stomach as his shadow drifted further away.    I blow him a warm kiss.  I am really, really gonna miss him.

Sigh.

PS:  Amy is off to rock around the clock till 2009.